


Grief is what can't be spoken

by KipDigress



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Apologies and explanations, Children of Earth Compliant, Gen, Not quite forgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 14:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18448211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KipDigress/pseuds/KipDigress
Summary: Jack's relationship with his daughter is irreparably ruined by his decision at the end of 'Children of Earth'. Johnson sees that this is part of the price Jack pays for being both Torchwood and immortal; she decides to do something she has not only been not told to do, but has also been advised to not do.





	1. A letter

April 2010

Dear Ms Carter,

Some say I shouldn't write this. In fact, that's not strictly true. The one person to whom I have mentioned the thought that has resulted in this letter advised me against it. And yet I am writing to you anyway.

I don't think you saw me, I hope you didn't see me, but I was at your son's funeral. Just as I was at much smaller funeral a few days earlier and another a few days later, for someone called Ianto Jones. He was one of the many who died in Thames House but one who, unlike almost everyone else in that building, was not trying to escape when he died. Shall I tell you who he was?

He was Torchwood: One _and_ Three.

He survived the battle of Canary Wharf only to die three years later in Thames House.

Your father loved him, though I'm not certain it was ever acknowledged, and I think his death - seemingly futile - broke his spirit as well as his heart.

At least that's the impression I got from watching the footage of Thames House, and which was reinforced by Gwen Cooper when she phoned me two days ago to say that Torchwood was no more and that your father had left Earth. She didn't say much, and when I asked, she would only say that he was full of grief, remorse and self-loathing.

You knew your father better than I did, so I hope you'll understand that I can only give an outsider's opinion. But though I may appear cold and heartless, I do hope I have managed to maintain enough of a conscience to be able to judge when a death has been deserved and is to some extent necessary or simply a display of power. I have been the agent of both types under orders and, though I have always obeyed orders to kill, I have tried to be merciful to those whose deaths seemed less well deserved.

I was sorry for my insistence the minute Dekker answered my question. It probably doesn't help, but the slimy man is dead. He killed your father's last hope that another means might be found to stop the 456 by giving the answer your father did not want to acknowledge. And his tone at the time was one of eagerness and anticipation, not your father's deep reluctance and regret. Not to mention that he had spent forty odd years sitting back and letting others do the dirty work, content to remain in relative obscurity but avoiding risk. His files were far from the most heartening things I have ever read - and I read every file on every target. Your father was - is - certainly a much better man.

But what's the point? Assuming you've got this far - I wouldn't blame you if you screwed this up and threw it in the bin when you reached the second paragraph.

The point is that your father was faced with an impossible choice, _and_ was a broken man before he was faced with that choice. You once told me that a man who cannot die has nothing to fear. I beg to differ. A man who cannot die will have to lose everything. This means he has two choices: either refuse to care and become a monster, or bravely face a life full of loss and heartbreak, knowing that he will ultimately bury all those whom he loves and be doomed to walk on alone, again.

Remember also that as head of Torchwood Three, your father's duty was to humanity at large - though he did answer formally to the Queen.

He has seen so much and lost so much in his long life, that though pity may not be exactly what he needs, I for one pity his plight, respect the choices he has been forced to make, and would not wish the pain he suffers on anyone.

But enough, I cannot tell you what to think or feel about your father. All I can do is remind you that he broke his own heart in breaking yours, and hope that, even if you cannot love or forgive him, you can learn to respect the decision he did not want to make. His long hesitation in agreeing - and his repeated instructions for Dekker and me to shut up - should be evidence enough on that count.

Lastly, I never did tell you my name.

Johnson.


	2. Stars

The first year after Steven's death a fair number of notes and flowers had appeared on his grave. He hadn't yet been forgotten entirely at school and her grief was still visible enough for the show of solidarity not to be considered officious. As the slow years passed, her son was gradually forgotten until, five years later Alice Carter found only two tokens of remembrance besides her own. She was familiar with both; they were identical to the previous four years: a single out of season daffodil with a tag 'GCTW' and a small bunch of forget me nots with 'Johnson' written in a neat hand she had only seen one other time.

She wondered idly what made these two women - one of whom she'd never met - persist in leaving these passing tokens on her son's grave every year - on the anniversary of his death, not his funeral as the few others who had remembered had. But apart from concluding that GC was the last living Torchwood operative on Earth and suspecting that Johnson, for some inexplicable reason felt responsible for Steven's death, Alice never followed the thought further.

So when the following year - the sixth since Steven's death - came, she was surprised to find three, not two, mementos at her son's marker. Two were so familiar that she barely glanced at them. The third she hardly dared to touch, afraid of what she would find.

Like the daffodil and the forget-me-nots, the token was tiny, no big statement or grand gesture, just a simple token of remembrance. But unlike the others it was neither floral nor especially perishable, being a small star made of some stiff paper-like material, but not Earth paper. Alice may have grown up away from Torchwood and aliens, but her mother had told her stories and she'd remembered some. Which meant this was from only one person: her father, Jack bloody Harkness. Gingerly, afraid of what she might find, Alice picked up the star and turned it carefully in her fingertips. On the back, in her father's neat copperplate writing were two words: 'I'm sorry.'

And so you should be, Alice thought savagely before setting the star back in its place.

Three years later there were four such stars at Steven's marker. The first two bore the same two words, the third 'I love you.' Alice often wondered precisely what her father was doing and whether he hoped to gain her forgiveness. She voiced the thought aloud when she read the message on the fourth star: 'I miss you.'

The next year the message was slightly longer, though not by much: 'No. I just need you to know.'

'You bastard,' Alice said out loud, her father was either watching her or had hidden some observation or recording system in the vicinity of the gravestone.

The following year's start was surprisingly uncommunicative: 'I'm sorry.'

Alice glanced around her, feeling paranoid, and caught the briefest glimpse of a grey coat tail whisking out of sight. So he was coming in person to spy on her once a year.

Over the next twelve months she thought long an hard about what she wanted to do: did she want to see her father, talk to him, could she bear to. Did he deserve recognition that could so easily be construed as a rapprochement bordering on forgiveness. She thought back to the fifth star - delivered ten years after her son's death, right about the time he should have been starting university - and understood that no, her father was realistic enough to not expect her forgiveness and would not interpret any action from her as such unless she said so explicitly.

The letter she'd received from Johnson all those years ago, already almost memorised was read many times that year.

On picking up the seventh star - another 'I love you' - Alice called out softly in the early morning stillness of the cemetery: 'Come out, Dad.' 

She stayed kneeling, listening carefully as she heard the slow footsteps approaching far more hesitantly than she'd ever known them before. She gestured with a hand to the grass beside her and was relieved when a large form, sombrely clad with the long grey coat over a dark shirt and trousers knelt wordlessly next to her.

They knelt in silence for long, timeless minutes.

Eventually Alice spoke: 'I'm sorry, Dad,' she said softly.

'Yeah, me too.' The raw pain in Jack's voice was not something Alice had anticipated. Twelve years had worn smooth the edges of her grief so today was little more than a bleaker day than the other three hundred and sixty odd grey days that made up her existence, but she had learnt to survive. Of course, her father's lover's death had been the day before, but until that moment, she hadn't quite believed Johnson's assertion that Ianto Jones' death had broken Jack Harkness's spirit as well as his heart.

She bowed her head in acquiescence, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. She sniffed, felt, rather than saw her father's hand reach for her shoulder then stop half way and drop slowly to lie helpless and uncertain on the damp grass between them. She took a steadying breath before she reached out to place her hand in his.

Time passed and they didn't say a word. By mutual consent they eventually stood, Alice accepting the help her father's hand, still clasped in hers, afforded, even though doing so forced her to face him. She looked him over carefully, critically. Of course, he didn't look any older, but he somehow looked more worn, tireder. She squeezed his hand gently and smiled sadly. Jack didn't say a word, just leaned in to place a gentle kiss on her forehead.

'Same time next year?' he asked.

'Yes, keep well, Dad.'

'You too, Alice,' and with a final squeeze of her hand, Jack was gone.

And so the years passed, though the collection of stars was frozen at seven, the meetings were never missed. They never said much, often barely more than a few words to acknowledge the other's presence and bid farewell; there wasn't a lot to say, but Alice slowly came to appreciate how much watching those he loved die broke her father's heart.

The year came, when grey haired and frail, Alice could no longer visit her son's grave. She was fairly certain her father already knew she wouldn't make their yearly rendezvous and why, but in one of their rare conversations they'd agreed to never meet anywhere else, and she trusted him to keep his promise.

With a little help, she cut a star and laminated it, visiting her son's grave with one of the carers one sunny afternoon a few days before the anniversary of her son's death. The carer placed the star with the others that, even after many years of exposure to everything British weather could throw at them, were undamaged, and Alice remembered sadly that the past three years had brought no daffodils. The forget-me-nots had ceased long before and Alice had reflected that Johnson, ever a soldier, had probably been killed; now it seemed that Gwen too had died although clearly she had lived to draw her pension.

A few days later Jack Harkness stood alone at his grandson's grave, tears coursing unheeded down his cheeks, a laminated star held in his hands, his eyes gazing fixedly at the writing he could no longer read:

'I love you Dad.'

He knew that the next time he came here would be in less than a year, and that it would be for his daughter's funeral. With her death, the last direct living connection to Ianto Jones - no matter how tenuous, given they had never met and had only been united by Steven's death - would be gone. He pulled a rather battered hard backed notebook out of an inside pocket and flipped it open to the back. He gently slipped the small collection of photos: the old Torchwood three team; Gwen and Rhys and baby Anwen; Anwen all grown up at her university graduation; several other team photos spanning several decades - the special teams - the ones that really gelled; a photo of his daughter and grandson he'd finally dared to ask for about ten years before; three of Ianto Jones - rather more worn than the rest after many years of careful but frequent - too frequent - handling. The tears ran down his cheeks ever faster as he ran a fingertip gently down the side of Ianto's face. He slipped the newest star - his daughter's final gift to him - into the collection, and returned them to their place in the book before placing the book gently back in his pocket.

Centuries later, after hundreds of stones had been replaced covering the remnants of new deceased, it was still possible to find in a variety of cemeteries across Britain a few very old grave markers that, for some reason - and it never was made clear why, no matter who asked - were untouched; records of deaths from the 21st century, predating the next oldest grave markers by at least three hundred years.

If anyone had bothered to count, they would have found seven: two together (Alice and Steven Carter), a group of three in Swansea (Rhys, Gwen and Anwen Williams), one in South London (Sarah Jane Smith), and one in Cardiff (Ianto Jones). Other than their antiquity, they shared one feature, what looked like paper stars that showed no signs of damage from the weather: six graves had one star while the seventh held seven. No one knew who or how, but the markers were carefully tended and clearly protected. Local legend in Cardiff reported a tall figure in an old grey coat visiting the lone grave there, but no matter what surveillance system the locals used, no evidence was ever obtained and after a couple of decades even that legend died out and the man in the old fashioned coat was no more than a ghost of a myth.

Thirteen stars and two in the back of a notebook; the fourteenth star that Jack Harkness had obtained after seeing The Doctor and before returning to remove all traces of Torchwood held a list of a few dozen names written in a minuscule hand, folded inside a much longer list.


End file.
